Wednesday 18 September 2013

Not your usual drug driving ad

Despite shaky evidence, advertisements around drug and alcohol use, and its impact on health and safety, tend to use scare and shock tactics.

Here is a new ad from New Zealand, whilst it seems quite light hearted it still leaves an impression. 


Video sourced from MaoriTelevision's YouTube Channel 2013 http://youtu.be/P8KAaf45g5U


Hopefully, we'll see a good evaluation of this ad campaign and its impact to add to the research of what is effective in prompting behaviour change.

Friday 13 September 2013

Webinars and online talks for AOD and mental health professionals

Here are 5 places you can go to view webinars and talks on AOD and Mental Health.  Webinars and online presentations can be an easy and convenient way to get information on the latest research and keep abreast of developments in your professional field.


1) InSight have an archive of their presentations held at Biala in Brisbane.  You can also sign up for their webinars and participate in future presentations
Talks include:
  • DBT in the treatment of borderline personality disorber
  • Speeding towards disaster - Amphetamine-Type Stimulants
  • Achieving and measuring AOD and other outcomes in among Indigenous people involved in the Boystown Program
  • and more...
http://www.insightqldarchives.org/archives.php


2) Australian Drug Foundation's YouTube channel, which includes a seminar on ICT and counselling
http://www.youtube.com/user/AustDrugFoundation?feature=watch


3) Talking Point's YouTube channel, including items on:
  • Resilience based practice
  • Exploring drug and alcohol harms across health settings
http://www.youtube.com/user/talkingpointvideo


4) Mental Health Professionals Network series of webinars including:
  • A collaborative approach to supporting people at risk of suicide
  • Working together: working better to support families living with parental mental illness
  • Perinatal mental health
  • Complex trauma
  • and much more...
http://www.mhpn.org.au/Webinars/WebinarRecordings/tabid/256/papg-1680/1/Default.aspx


5) Dovetail videos including:
  • Harm minimisation in Australia
  • Tips for frontline workers: Dual Diagnosis
  • Bad trip guidelines
http://www.dovetail.org.au/video-gallery.aspx


 and another bonus one;

TED talks on mental health including:
  • The voices in my mind
  • Toward a new understanding of mental illness
  • A tale of mental illness from the inside
http://www.ted.com/topics/mental+health/page/1

Have another suggestion for your colleagues? Comment below.

Friday 6 September 2013

National Child Protection Week

Tomorrow is the final day of National Child Protection Week (1st-7th September).

The event is organised by the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN).  Visit their website here: http://napcan.org.au/

The website has a Resources Hub, which has a good selection of resources including a number of helpful brochures.
Brochures include, but are not limited to: "Alternatives to smacking", "Use words that help not hurt", "When a child feels sad", and "Keeping children safe from sexual abuse".

On the topic of child protection, there is still the video file from the "Child Protection for Workers" seminar (held in April this year) available on SiteMap.  Click on the Training Resources link from the front page of SiteMap.  This item is an internal file and you'll need to be connected to the appropriate server for access.

The Australian Institute of Family Studies provides links to numerous studies, facts and statistics from their website.

The following guidelines regarding child protection are available through their site

Please comment if you have other resources you'd like to share with your colleagues.

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Adult learners' week

It's adult learners' week this week and this year's theme is "Pathways".

Learning and access to education are vitally important, particularly at this time when technology rapidly changes and information is in an overwhelming abundance.  Being able to read, write and utilise technology is essential, and people without these skills are increasingly becoming disadvantaged in their ability to participate in society.  The disparity between those who have access to ICT, and skills to use it, and those who don't is commonly referred to as the "digital divide".  This may have significant impact for the clients that our organisations support.

Further, it is important that we understand the necessity for lifelong learning in our own roles (and lives!).  It is no longer likely that a 3-4yr qualification will be sufficient to last you a career.  As information, research and technology expands and increases so too does the need to continue learning and expanding knowledge in your chosen area.  The importance of lifelong learning is reflected in clinical governance statements, organisational and professional ethical charters, and certification/accreditation processes for various professions.


The official webpage for adult learning week is here:

http://adultlearnersweek.org/

Under the further resources tab there's a really useful list of online resources for:
Literacy resources
Digital literacy
Emotional literacy
Financial literacy
Health literacy
Information literacy

These may be useful for yourself or a client.  Also be aware that local and state libraries commonly run computer and internet skills programs to help bridge the "digital divide". 

The Reading and Writing Hotline also provides numerous resources.

Also worth a look for your information is the Adult Learning Australia website.  Find information on learning theories, adult learning principles, and learning styles.

For suggestions for your own learning you could read up on MOOCs, discussed here a couple of months ago.  It may be useful to consider how you evaluate your learning needs and where you record your learning activities - I will promise a blog topic on this one day, but if you have any suggestions about this please let your colleagues know about them in the comments below.